


Doubt

by dryswallow



Category: Nabari no Ou
Genre: Animal Death, Fishing, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-07
Updated: 2013-07-07
Packaged: 2017-12-18 01:26:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/874103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dryswallow/pseuds/dryswallow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The summer that he is eleven years old, his father becomes so sick that Raikou is scared he will die.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Doubt

The summer that he is eleven years old, his father becomes so sick that Raikou is scared he will die. His health has always been in a constant state of flux but a bout of illness has never come on this fast before, destroying his father's appetite and ability to sleep. Throughout the night, the walls seem to shake with a cough that sounds like scraping. Even his mother seems worried; she paces circles in her study and is quick to snap at Raikou and Raimei for forgotten chores and other mistakes.

The day after his father is admitted to the hospital, Raikou's uncle insists on taking him fishing in the next town over. There's a lake there, he explains, where his family sometimes fished when he himself was a boy. He speaks of it with the particular kind of reverence his uncle always seems to have for familial traditions.

They wake early and pack the car, heading over not long after breakfast. His uncle has only one fishing rod but he promises Raikou he will let him have a turn with it.

“I don't know how,” Raikou tells him, looking out over the lake, but his uncle only laughs.

“Then I'll teach you! It's not that hard, once you get the hang of it.”

Sunlight fills the air around them, hot on his skin and tongue. Raikou slips off his shoes and sits on the edge of the dock, lowering his legs into the dark water.

“Don't kick your legs too much,” his uncle warns. “You'll scare the fish.”

They wait quietly for long minutes while Raikou's uncle casts and recasts, fitting the hook with worms he had pulled from their garden earlier that morning. A pungent smell rises from the lake, filling his mouth and throat. It reminds him of the way their garden smells when you're deep within it, hidden among the plants, but thicker and wetter.

“Oh, here's one!”

Sure enough, the line has gone taut. It vibrates as the fish pulls this way and that, but the struggle makes no difference; the line shortens until the fish is close enough to the dock that Raikou can see flashes of it beneath the lake's surface.

“Raikou, quick, bring the net!” his uncle shouts.

The fish is shaking wildly when it is pulled from the water, desperately flopping this way and that as Raikou brings the net up from under it.

“Good work,” his uncle says. He reaches into the net carefully, grasping at the fish until he's able to remove the hook. He then lifts it up into the air, one hand grasping its tail and the other wrapped around its head.

Its neck breaks with a soft crack, bending easily in his uncle's hands.

“Ah, that could've been cleaner,” his uncle mutters. “Haven't done this in a while.”

The fish gets tossed into the ice-filled cooler they brought with them. Even after Raikou closes the lid over it, its smell lingers in the air and starts to curdle.

“Smaller than I was hoping, but good for the first catch,” his uncle tells him. “We'll catch a few more and have them all for dinner when your dad comes home, how's that?”

Spots are floating in front of his eyes and his legs feel weak beneath him; he must have stood up too quickly.

“The heat is making me feel sick,” Raikou says. “I'm going to go sit in the shade for a while.”

His uncle glances over at him, eyes tight with suspicion.

“Sure, sure,” he says. “Just don't wander off, okay?”

Holding his shoes in one hand, Raikou hurries back towards shore, wet feet leaving dark stains on the dock's wooden planks.

Raikou spends the rest of the afternoon sprawled in the shadow of a large tree, limbs pressed keenly to the earth. The grass is cold against his skin. He imagines himself growing roots that plunge deep into the soil and hold him steady even as he shudders.

He loses track of time.

-

“Here,” his uncle says, setting a bottle of water down beside him. “Sorry, should've given you some earlier.”

Raikou raises his head from the ground, eyes open but fixed on the grass below him.

“How are you feeling?”

“Fine,” he answers, reaching for the water.

“You look a bit sunburnt,” his uncle says. “Shit. Your mom's not gonna be happy with me.”

The bottle must have been left out in the sun because the water is almost as warm as the air around them. Raikou gulps it down regardless, grateful for anything to wet his tongue and throat.

“How many did you catch?” Raikou asks.

“Just a few. Enough for a good meal, at least,” his uncle says. He pauses, twisting his mouth into frustrated shapes before he finally speaks again. “You've been pretty quiet today. I didn't want to bug you about it, but, I guess you're pretty worried about your dad, huh?”

“Yeah,” Raikou answers. He has no reason to pretend otherwise.

“You know your mother and I don't agree on a lot of things. But to her credit, I don't think she's going to let him die anytime soon,” his uncle says. “And I know she seems mad, she's just frustrated she can't do much for him right now. She's not mad at you or Raimei.”

“I know,” Raikou says. “I just hope he comes home soon.”

“He will,” his uncle says, with a certainty that Raikou wishes was his own.

There is something small and dark in the pit of his stomach, pulling him inwards and weighing him down. His doubt feels like a betrayal, and if his father gets sicker and sicker until he dies in that hospital, it will be Raikou's fault for not being sure enough of his recovery.

“It's late,” his uncle says finally. “Let's get going.”

Raikou's father lives through that summer, and the three summers following as well. Cold relief fills Raikou's chest when he first hears his father's voice again, still strained but not as raspy as it had been. Raimei dashes down the hallway shouting, letting anyone who will listen know that everything is all right, their father is home.


End file.
